TEACHER BACKGROUND

Unit 4 - Ocean Waters in Motion: Currents

Currents: Moving Water

Key Concepts
1. Currents are large-scale water
movements in the sea.
2. Currents affect living organisms by
influencing food supply, water
temperature and weather patterns.
3. The three main causes of currents in
the ocean are:
wind
earths rotation
density differences in ocean waters

Background
Currents are large-scale water movements that occur everywhere in the
ocean. The surface currents are driven by winds, while deep subsurface
currents are driven by density differences in the ocean water. Ocean currents
transport heat from the equator toward the poles, thereby partially equalizing
surface temperatures over the earth. Ocean currents, winds, and weather
patterns are closely linked. Currents can affect the food chain by transporting
nutrients and plankton from one area to another. Fish congregate in high
plankton areas to feed, attracting larger predators such as tuna, birds and
marine mammals (and humans!).
Wind Driven Currents
The ocean and atmosphere of the earth are heated unevenly by the sun.
More heating takes place at the equator than at the poles. This difference in
temperature at the equator and the poles causes warm air to rise along the
equator, and cold air to sink at the poles. Rising and sinking air creates wind,
as adjacent air masses move in response.
Wind blowing over long distances of ocean tends to drag surface water along
with it. The rotation of the earth causes oceanic wind patterns to create large
circular currents, or gyres. The bending caused by the earths rotation is
called the Coriolis Effect. In the northern hemisphere the gyres flow clockwise,
in the southern hemisphere gyres flow counterclockwise. These large winddriven currents are year-around, constant patterns.

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Density Currents
At the North and South Poles, ocean water is cooled by the polar ice caps
and by the lack of sun. Very cold, dense water sinks and flows along the
bottom of the ocean toward the equator. Antarctic bottom currents flow past
the equator into the northern hemisphere. These polar bottom currents are
very slow moving. It may take 600 years for Antarctic bottom water to reach
into the northern hemisphere. This very cold water is full of oxygen and is the
primary source of oxygen in the deep sea.
At the equator, waters warmed by the tropical sun rise, expand, and flow
out away from the equator. Remember that the atmosphere is moving in much
the same pattern, also due to unequal heating by the sun.
El Nio
Normal wind and current patterns in the Pacific ocean create a flow of water
near the equator that moves from the coast of the Americas toward the west.
Every few years this pattern of wind and currents changes. For reasons that
are only beginning to be understood, the Trade Winds die down and become
weak. The westward-flowing equatorial current slows and is pushed aside by
the equatorial counter-current running in the opposite direction. This means
that lots of warm, nutrient-poor water moves east along the equator from the
western Pacific. This warmer water reaches the coast of South America,
pushing the Peru current further south.

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Unit 4 - Ocean Waters in Motion: Currents

Many organisms cannot tolerate warmer water. Plankton die from lack of
nutrients in the warm water. Fish, such as anchovies, that feed on plankton,
scatter to find food somewhere else. The food chain is disrupted by this change
in ocean currents.
Because this event often happens during the Christmas season, the people
of South America have named it El Nio, or the child. El Nio is
devastating to the fishing industry of coastal countries such as Peru.
Environmental effects of El Nio including a rise in sea level and modified
weather patterns can reach all the way to the United States.

Key Words
current - large-scale movement of ocean waters
density - mass per unit volume of a substance. More dense seawater tends
to sink, less dense seawater tends to rise in the ocean.
El Nio - weather related change in oceanic wind and current patterns
gyres - large circular ocean currents caused by wind and rotation of the
earth.
hydrometer - instrument used to measure density or specific gravity of a
liquid.
nutrients - essential minerals for life: similar to vitamins
salinity - measure of the quantity of dissolved salts in seawater
upwelling - process by which water rises from a lower depth usually
bringing nutrients with it.
veer - a tendency to bend in one direction

TEACHER BACKGROUND - Currents: Moving Water

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Answer Key
1. A river of water within the sea is called a current.
2. One force that moves ocean waters is the direct rays of the sun which
provides more heat to the seas near the equator. Warm tropical seas expand,
rise and move away from the equator.
3. This world map is correctly marked:

4. Saltwater/freshwater is more dense (heavier). The correct answer is in

bold print.
5. The deepest water in the oceans is warm/cold and light/heavy. The
correct answers are in bold print.
6. This map is correctly labeled:

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Unit 4 - Ocean Waters in Motion: Currents

7. Three factors important in causing currents are:

a. differences in density of the water
b. the earths rotation
c. wind
8. Three ways in which currents affect living things may be chosen from the
following:
a. hinder or facilitate movement
b.determine where plants and animals can live
c. determine the course of ships
d. affect the migration and settling of people
e. affect the climate of the land near which they pass.

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